Kevin Woods sounds his horn

One never knows how simple acts can shape a life.

Trumpet and flugelhorn player Kevin Woods, who’s been director of jazz studies at Western Washington University since 2015, remembers making family road trips with music as an important passenger. 

“We only owned two cassette tapes,” he said, “and both were compilation recordings of Louis Armstrong. My dad would buy us Dubble Bubble bubble gum, then he’d give me his comb and I’d make a makeshift kazoo out of the Dubble Bubble wax paper wrapper and the comb. I’d sing and play along to all of the melodies and solos on those tapes.” 

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